When the music of Nikolai Kapustin was discovered by a wider audience in the West, it was positively shocking: Who was this Soviet (!) composer, whose music sounded more like an Oscar Peterson improvisation than anything else - but who wrote detailed scores, black with notes?! As we discover more and more of his music and as we again can hear on the present recording, Kapustin developed his style subtly and steadily. He went with the times. As the music that influenced him changed, so did Kapustin's. The development of Big Band Jazz can be traced in his work. In that sense Kapustin never settled on one style (within the parameters of his unique fusion of jazz and classical, granted) but remained flexible about the musical material and the way he related it to the orchestra.

Harriet Krijgh is one of today's most exciting and promising young cellists. Her grace and expressiveness touch her audiences as soon as she is on the concert platform. Her discography also comprises of six discs, all released by Capriccio in the last six years, featuring music by Kabalewski, Haydn, Brahms, Rachmaninoff as well as several French composers. Krijgh is winner of numerous competitions. She was chosen "Rising Star" of by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) and was artistic director of the Utrecht Chamber Music Festival in 2017 and 2018. With the present CD she made a long-held wish come true and presents two of the most popular cello concertos by Dvorak and Elgar.

Most popular and traditional Christmas Music and Songs from the Austrian Mountain Regions.

Béla Bartók is one of the unquestionably “great” composers and one of the few modern composers who established themselves in the repertoire. His three piano concertos are central to his biography and musical output, but only the Third, with some generosity, could be considered “popular.” Although well represented on disc, the first two are rare concert program guests. Tzimon Barto sees a problem in an all-too-mechanical approach to these two percussive works: “Even Bartók needs a supple touch. If you bang away at it, without rhythmical buoyancy, of course it will become tedious.” These recordings are his attempt at doing justice to his Bartók-ideal.

REVIEW:

Christoph Eschenbach and Tzimon Barto have a long history of collaboration. Bartók, too, has long been a frequent composer on Eschenbach’s programs.

In these recordings, the two musicians offer very special, unconventional interpretations. They are not interested in motoric coolness, in hard-edged virtuosity, but in a very interesting way they search for moods and a narrative that cannot be found in the many other good interpretations of the Bartók concertos. Not with Zimermann/Boulez, not with Bavouzet/Noseda, not with Kocsis/Fischer, and, going back even further, not with Anda/Fricsay.

Eschenbach and Barto take their time with the music and, with remarkable transparency and many warm colors, create sometimes very mysterious and exciting passages, such as in the slow movement of the first concerto, or a wonderfully atmospheric Allegretto, which, at nine and a half minutes, lasts up to two minutes longer than with other interpreters. Even more astonishing is the greatly extended Adagio religioso, which at nearly 14 minutes is up to four and a half minutes longer than other recordings used for comparison.

All in all, however, this new recording is definitely interesting and worth listening to, because it brings out new aspects and gives Bartók a variety of expression that cannot be found anywhere else.

— Pizzicato

Alfred Schnittke's film music encapsulates almost everything that characterises the Russian composer's compositional style. A self-described polystylist, he began writing for film in the 1960s, penning 66 film scores between 1962 and 1984 for Soviet film companies. His method of drawing on the past was rejected by the avant-garde but embraced by filmgoers and concertgoers too. Volume six in this CD Edition of Schnittke's film music presents music from the film series "Little Tragedies" (1979) based on popular novels by Alexander Pushkin. After longtime research conductor Vladimir Jurowski also recorded all parts of the score which have been cancelled at the end for the final Film Version.

World Premiere Recordings of Christmas Cantatas from the Archive of Assisi Monastery.

Mystic Orthodox Christmas Chants from Russian and Bulgarian Monasteries.

Christmas Songs from different Scandinavian Countries. Sung in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish and Icelandic.

Whenever Gustav Mahler spoke of Beethoven, he did so with an air of reverence: "Among poets and composers of more recent times we can, perhaps, name but three: Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Wagner." And yet, Mahler the conductor considered Beethoven's scores primarily a challenge; material that needed adapting and adopting to the orchestras and concert halls of his time. Richard Wagner had already prepared Beethoven's scores and written about it in great detail. The balance of sound of the classical orchestra was off, and a return to previous states was out of the question, given the increased size of the concert halls. People knew of their existence, but it was not until 1927 that Erwin Stein, the composer, pianist, and music journalist active in Schoenberg's circles, was able to report that all of Mahler's conductor's scores, replete with his "Retuschen" (retouchings), had in fact survived.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Praised for "her mastery of phrasing and of the dramatic dimension" (Diapason), "astonishing virtuosity" (Revelation Classiques) and "her infinite delicacy" (Le Populaire du centre), French violinist Irene Duval is establishing herself as a uniquely compelling performer with a strong interest in combining works central to the repertoire with little-known gems. Born in France to a French father and Korean mother, Irene Duval grew up in Japan, Indonesia, and Hong Kong before returning to France at the age of eleven. She studied with Suzanne Gessner and Jean-Jacques Kantorow, before entering the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris in 2008 in the class of Roland Daugareil; in 2014 she joined the Kronberg Academy in Germany, where she studied with Mihaela Martin for three years.

David is well served here.

Surely it cannot be a coincidence that this exotic reissue from the Capriccio back-catalogue has come just now.

Phoenix Edition, who seem to have access to licences for most of the Capriccio material, have just issued a very idiosyncratic collection of three discs. This draws on late-1980s recordings made by Capriccio on the theme of Les brises d'Orient. The major rarity in that set was Le Sélam by Reyer. You remember Reyer's name? He wrote an opera on Salammbo and a Wagnerian tribute drama called Sigurd - I hope that one day they will be revived and recorded. The strange thing was that aside from packing that Phoenix Edition set with much that was popular and easily available elsewhere they had omitted Le Désert which had formed part of the original series. Here it is now but re-issued on Capriccio.

David did not see the twentieth century, dying in 1876 at the age of 66. His music on this evidence - the only I have heard - is smoothly romantic. It is at times rather like ceremonial grand Berlioz or Verdi's Aida. His Ode symphonie bears a resemblance in broad scheme to the exotic symphonies of Benjamin Godard (1849-1895). who wrote the Symphonie Orientale and Symphonie Gothique which have been recorded in synthesised orchestral versions by Bhagwan Thadani.

After tribulations and tempest the Saharan caravan returns at the end of part 3 to the placid resumption of the journey. There's a touch of stormy upheaval in La tempête au désert. The second part is in six episodes which are calming and only in La Fantaisie Arabe and the La danse des almées is their a hint of exotic colour in the form of jingling janissary music and a measure of seduction. The influence of Berlioz is undeniable in the La liberté du désert. Le chant du Muezzin stands in a hybrid land between the authentic ululation of the call to prayer and French opera of the grand siècle of Meyerbeer and his lavish contemporaries. All in all it's not very exotic but it is interesting. The work ends in a grand Beethovenian unison with the orchestra. I wonder what else of Félicien David has survived?

Lazzaretti's oration is delivered in resoundingly convincing idiomatic French. He acts the text and varies his voice to match. Félicien David is well served here and the disc forms a timely reminder that musical France in the nineteenth century was a far more diverse place than we might expect from the few works recorded and the even fewer actually played.

The little essay is given in German, English and French but the sung and spoken text is in French and German only.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata, the work to which this album is devoted, is as diversified and idiosyncratic as the composer himself. The piece has four movements, each based on an American writer of the 19th century. All writers which inspired Ives had a close relationship with Concord, Massachusetts. Pianist Tzimon Barto provides a brilliant interpretation full of sensitivity and impressive virtuosity to this work.

Euripides interpreted "Elegy", the grand ancient song of lament, as a "barbaric, Asian cry of sorrow". to some extent an exotic sound coloration also infuses the elegiac compositions of the European masters assembled for this CD. 23 year old Dutch cellist Harriet Krijgh is one of today's most exciting and promising young cellists. She has been invited on to the "Rising Star" series of the European Concert Hall Organization (ECHO) for the 2015/16 season, nominated by Musikverein and Konzerthaus Vienna. The included Bonus-DVD shows features a new documentary about Ms. Krjigh's life and career.